Northwest Fishing Reports

I have not used corn but I was told by a fisherman that the use of corn is illegal. He told me that the fish can't digest it and that the fish die after eating it. But, I read about people on here that using corn all the time and it seems perfectly fine. I have not found any supporting information that corn is illegal. So can anyone tell me if the use of corn is illegal or is this rule only in effect for some counties? I mostly fish in king county. I am confused about this. Help would be great. Thanks in advance.

Iceman,

It is not illegal to use corn as bait in Washington State. That being said, it would be irresponsible of someone to chum with it or release fish caught with it as it is not digestible by them. I will use corn for Kokanee only when nothing else is working and I never chum with it. There are times though when nothing else will beat it, so if the situation calls for it, put a kernel or two on the hook and go for it!

corn is allowed where bait is allowed, if its a selective gear fishery or other no bait zones then corn is illegal but wherever bait is allowed you can use corn. there was debate over whether they can digest the corn ok or not and found it doesnt hurt the fish, at least from what i have read. very effective carp bait too if your into that kind of fish (ugly and smelly) :P another thing you can do for trout it to dye the corn red using food coloring to make "salmon eggs"

chumming you wouldnt want to use kernels anyway i wouldnt think, i think you would want corn meal or something like that for a better chum, not that i have every chummed before so i wouldnt know for sure.

corn has been popular and good bait for years for both kokanee and carp. When ever somebody makes a broad brush stroke statement like this guy did about something relating to what is illegal or not,,,,,, always just go to the regs. for whatever body of water you are fishing in. If you got google, then you've got the regs. They are also on the link section above where you are reading on this page. So many people will bat a topic around about what is legal or not, when it's right there in your regs. Just be sure to realize that you have look at the specific body of water. Good luck.

The Quadfather wrote: When ever somebody makes a broad brush stroke statement like this guy did about something relating to what is illegal or not,,,,,, always just go to the regs. for whatever body of water you are fishing in. .

:thumleft: :thumleft: :thumleft: I'll second that

Just a helpful tip. When you are looking at the regs using adobe acrobat reader you can use it to search the entire document for a specific word or group or words. I just now tried to find the word corn in our regs and the only thing it found was the word "corner". So it would be safe to say that corn is not specifically addressed in our regs.

Thanks guys for clearing that up. I have always ruled out corn as an option because of this one guy's remark. I am not a person who breaks rules and I hate it when I see people break them. I always read the regs. I am asking because I never found any information stating it to be illegal. I just didn't want to find out the hard way with a ticket.

The way I interpet it, it you can use bait where your fishing, then whatever you put on your hook is ok. corn, goldfish, worms, powerbait, it's all the same in the regs. At least I can't see anything different. If I want to tie a pumpkin to the end of my line it's fine, I just wont catch anything.

sharpshooter223 wrote:

The Quadfather wrote: When ever somebody makes a broad brush stroke statement like this guy did about something relating to what is illegal or not,,,,,, always just go to the regs. for whatever body of water you are fishing in. .

:thumleft: :thumleft: :thumleft: I'll second that

I "Third" that

gian wrote:The way I interpet it, it you can use bait where your fishing, then whatever you put on your hook is ok. corn, goldfish, worms, powerbait, it's all the same in the regs. At least I can't see anything different. If I want to tie a pumpkin to the end of my line it's fine, I just wont catch anything.

Just for safety NO LIVE BAIT IN WA

You're right " you may not: possess or use live fish for game fish bait"

gian wrote:You're right " you may not: possess or use live fish for game fish bait"

but you can catch a game fish and use it as dead bait, but you would have to count it in your limit if say you caught a 2" bass. you can kill it and use it as bait. but it would also be considered part of your daily limit for bass. there has been discussions in the past on this topic. as for the corn it also works great for sucker fishing on the columbia.

Corn is fine to use. I've always been told it messes up the digestive process and is bad for the fish, but have never seen any evidence it is. I always check the stomach contents when I'm cleaning fish, and have found dozens of odd things that were ingested. Sticks, rocks, sinkers, pull tabs, cig butts, hooks. Doesn't seem to bother the fish, so corn shouldn't either.

I think maybe the bad rap corn has gotten is from the old days when people would chum with corn. Fish would get stuffed with corn and then not eat for a couple days. Not so sure that's true either. I've caught fish with stomachs that looked like they were going to give birth to a football, so who knows.

Corn is a tried and true bait for Kokanee. White "shoepeg" is the standard and it can be fished natural color or dyed. There are a few commercial corn products, both colored and flavored, as well as the dye available. Trollers that target kokanee usually put a single kernel of of shoepeg on the hook on their spinners. Some fishermen anchor up and "chum" with corn but its usually the creamed stuff as it puts a big scent trail and attracts the kokes in to their baited hooks. Not every lake allows chumming, in fact very few do. Just the lakes with kokes. A few rivers also allow chumming for whitefish. pull up the regs PDF and type "chumming" into the search field. It'll show the first reference to chumming. To see more use the drop down arrow box and select next. Eventually you'll see every reference in the regs.

bigbasstaz wrote:...

Just for safety NO LIVE BAIT IN WA

careful there.

live bait (like worms, crickets, etc. but not fish) is legal

live fish for bait for gamefish is illegal

live fish for bait for foodfish is legal

panfisher wrote:

gian wrote:You're right " you may not: possess or use live fish for game fish bait"

but you can catch a game fish and use it as dead bait, but you would have to count it in your limit if say you caught a 2" bass. you can kill it and use it as bait. but it would also be considered part of your daily limit for bass. there has been discussions in the past on this topic. as for the corn it also works great for sucker fishing on the columbia.

Has anyone emailed the WDFW to verify whether or not it's legal to use a dead game fish as bait?

If a game warden catches you using a dead trout as a bass lure, I'm thinkin' you might be in trouble. [-x

Im almost positive you cannot use fresh gamefish for bait.Everyone uses salmon carcass for crabbing at least a few times.Thats what I do with Chums and Humpies.

bigbasstaz wrote:

gian wrote:The way I interpet it, it you can use bait where your fishing, then whatever you put on your hook is ok. corn, goldfish, worms, powerbait, it's all the same in the regs. At least I can't see anything different. If I want to tie a pumpkin to the end of my line it's fine, I just wont catch anything.

Just for safety NO LIVE BAIT IN WA

Not a true statement.....worms are live and so are anchovies.

Page 31 of the regs states that you may not use live fish for game fish bait. It also Ok's the use of salmon, halibut and herring for bait. I can see a humorous interpretation of the paragraph covering cleaning and portioning your catch. It states that the rule does not apply if the catch is being prepared for immediate consumption but does not define who or what may be doing the consuming! Page 28 defines what is considered a food fish and what is considered a game fish. I thought in the past that the State had a rule not allowing game fish to be used as bait, but I have not found anything like that for several years. Good thing too, as I use any fish carcasses I can for crab bait or chumming and who hasn't used perch meat for catching more perch?

I think using dead fish for bait has less room for error. Less explaining to the game warden.